C3 Technologies
More info
- Released
- 2007–2011
- Type
- 3D mapping
- Owner
- Apple (from 2011)
The Linköping company that turned Saab's targeting technology into the photorealistic 3D cities of Apple Maps.
C3 Technologies was spun out of Saab in 2007. Its technology came from the defence industry's need to compute precise three-dimensional terrain models from aerial photography, and the company automated the process to the point where whole cities — buildings, trees, textures — could be modelled without anyone drawing by hand. Early customers were mapping and GIS firms.
Apple quietly bought C3 in 2011 while preparing its own maps app to end its dependence on Google. The result appeared in 2012 as Flyover in Apple Maps. The app as a whole had a famously rough launch, but the 3D views were the part that actually worked. It is one more branch of the same tree as Datasaab: Swedish computing with roots in the aircraft industry.